Learn & develop your own Android Twitter app for FREE!

The good people at O'Reilly did it again. They have started part 2 of a series of free online courses on Android application development. You can read about the part 1 of the course here.

A free 6 week course, instructor Tony Hillerson will guide you with a hands-on how to build an Android Twitter app, how to use OAuth, using the Twitter APIs and also the ins and outs of Android's features.

Classes starts at 2am - 4am on every Wednesday beginning from 18 May 2010 until 22 June 2010. Please be advise the time described here is for Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei.

It's not too late to register for the course. Droid on.

Apps2SD For Rooted Froyos

Announcing ModInstallLocation. Its function is simple - it enables installation of applications to external storage on Froyo. One caveat though - it requires root.

By default Froyo enables apps to be installed on external storage only if the app developer allows it. This makes sense as not all apps are suited to run from external storage due to a simple fact - it's a removable storage and can be removed (either physically or when mounted as a USB mass storage device). Hence services, alarms, widgets, etc. (see here a comprehensive list) will probably not work if installed on external storage.

ModInstallLocation runs 'pm setInstallLocation' behind the scenes (thanks for the folks at XDA developers for discovering this) allowing any app to be installed on external storage. If you don't know what this means, this isn't for you. Once installLocation has been set to '2', you'll be able to move your apps from phone to SD card in 'Settings' -> 'Manage Applications' -> Select an app -> 'Move to SD card'.

Interested? Get the apk here. Head over to XDA developers for questions.

p/s: I'd publish this in AndroidMarket but it looks like there's a bug that's preventing apps that targets SDK v8 from being published.

Update: Sources are at github.

Protected apps in (a rooted) Froyo

If you've followed the guide on how to flash your stock Nexus One to Froyo, congratulations, you're running a very new and very fast operating system.

But if you are running a rooted Nexus One, you'll need to follow another guide to get Froyo running. You'll also come to realize that while paid apps are visible once your carrier ID has been faked (see Market Enabler), encrypted or protected apps are not visible. Documents To Go, the New York Times Reader, ExZeus are a few I noticed.

To get these back, you'll need to do the following:

1. Connect your phone via adb and enable USB debugging
2. Download 'froyo.zip' from here and extract its content (froyo.prop)
3. Type the following

adb remount
adb shell cp /system/froyo.prop /system/build.prop.bak
adb push froyo.prop /system/build.prop
adb shell reboot

4. Once reboot has been completed, checkin by entering the following in your dialer

*#*#2432546#*#*

5. You should see a notification in the status bar.

And you're done :)

This is just a temporary fix. Once Froyo is released officially, AndroidMarket will recognize it as a valid device and allow unrestricted access to protected apps. When this happens, simple delete 'build.props' and rename 'build.props.bak' to 'build.props'.

How to manually update Nexus One to Froyo

Today, I've successfully updated my non-rooted Nexus One to Froyo, the awesome version of Android. But this method works for non-rooted devices, so if you're rooted, you might want to head to XDA developers forum & get some advice. For non-roots, it's real easy. Here's how:

1. Download the official update package from Google. Save the ZIP file into your computer or into your Nexus One SD card. Rename the file to update.zip. Tip: Download the file into your computer, rename it & copy it into your SD card via USB.
2. Power down your device.
3. Hold down the volume down button & power up your device.
4. You'll see the Android boot screen. The loader will try to search & load some files. Once that is done, scroll down & choose "Recovery".
5. When a warning screen appears (a triangle with an exclamation mark), press the power & volume up button together, at the same time.
6. A new menu appears. Select "Apply sdcard:update.zip". Confirm the update.
7. You'll then be brought to a progress screen. This will take about a few minutes.
8. Once the update is complete, your Nexus One will reboot itself (it happened twice for me).
9. Voila! You're on Froyo!

Senang kan? Share with us your experience with Froyo.